At the last minute, at 6 p.m. on Saturday evening, NEWSWEEK magazine killed a story that was destined to shake official Washington to its foundation A White House intern carried on a sexual affair with the President of the United States
These words, posted early Sunday morning, Jan. 18, on the personal Web site of a man named Matt Drudge, began the lurid multimedia frenzy engulfing the United States today.
Welcome to journalism in the Internet Age an age when a 30yearold former CBS giftshop clerk like Drudge, armed with a computer and a modem, can wield nearly as much power as a network executive producer or the editor of The New York Times.
The Drudge Report, a mix of gossip, politics, rumor and news, has been attracting attention in cyberspace for a couple of years now. Some 60,000 subscribers receive Drudges daily bulletins and flash reports; tens of thousands more read them on his Web site. Using a network of tipsters and borrowed passwords to the internal computer systems of media powerhouses, Drudge has managed to scoop the media establishment on a number of stories, including the selection of Jack Kemp as Bob Doles vice presidential running mate and Connie Chungs dismissal by CBS.
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